12

G abriel had promised his mom was out, but Miles was unsteady as he knocked on the front door of the Hawthorne mansion. He wanted to blame it on the creeping chill of the house's aura, but the truth was, the whole drive over, he'd convinced himself Felicity would be waiting there for him, ready to toss him into the dungeon. He was willing to bet this spooky place had one, complete with chains on the wall and wailing ghosts. Felicity would lock him up and he'd never be heard from again.

He suspected he was a rabbit willingly walking into the wolf's den.

Gabriel opened the door, his hair damp as if he'd recently showered, his white button-up perfectly ironed. He was all crisp lines and sharp edges, daring the world to cut itself on him.

"Can you stop wearing those?" Miles asked in exasperation. "You're tempting fate and stressing me out."

Gabriel's mouth quirked up in the corner, there and gone in a blink. "If it will make you feel better." He peered around. "Your angry cousin won't be joining us?"

Ha. "No, she determined me fit to drive. And I don't think she wanted to wait in the car."

That hadn't stopped her from giving him a hard time. She'd begrudgingly agreed to leave with him—selling the lie to his mom that they were going to the craft store to get supplies for Charlee's latest project—if he dropped her off at her favorite coffee shop on the way. Then she'd given him a chilling warning that if something went wrong, he'd have to call his mom.

Gabriel scanned him from head to toe, then glanced over Miles's shoulder. "Are you that pasty from the vision, or because you weren't sure if your car was going to make the drive?"

A single cursory look at Blanche and he was already talking about her behind her back. The disrespect.

Blanche wasn't just Miles's car. She was one of his few sanctuaries. He spent afternoons driving around when the house got too crowded and loud, skipping lunches to afford gas money, parking in random places and sketching in the comforting quiet. It took everything in Miles not to drag Gabriel over to her and make him apologize.

"At least I have a car. I bet you have your butlers drive you around everywhere."

"No." There was a slight pause. "That's what the chauffeur is for."

Gabriel wasn't smiling, but humor shined in his eyes, lightening them to a soft, smoky gray.

"You're unbelievable," Miles muttered. He'd never admit it, but falling into their usual back-and-forth rhythm was helping to settle his nerves. "Are you going to let me in?"

Gabriel moved aside and swung the door open wordlessly.

Miles was no less intimidated by the interior than last time he'd been here—the gleaming wood, white marble and gold accents, and overwhelming size of the foyer dripped with opulence and wealth. He felt… unwelcome wasn't a strong enough word. Unworthy, maybe, to be entering such a place with his scuffed thrift store shoes.

"What happens if some of your… staff see me? Do they all have your mom on speed dial?"

That amused Gabriel. "No. Very few of them are loyal to her."

"Who are they loyal to, then? Your dad?"

"Have you met my father?"

"No."

"Consider yourself lucky. He's a bastard."

Miles blinked in surprise.

"And he's never here. Busy with his not-so-secret mistress in Seattle, or on one of his endless trips to the east coast." Gabriel looked away. "So, to answer your question, no, they aren't loyal to him, either. There's no loyalty in this house, only survival."

Miles didn't know what to say, or why Gabriel had told him all this. Miles's dad always said money couldn't buy happiness, but he'd expected… he wasn't sure what he'd expected. That Gabriel had created his own little spoiled-rich-kid paradise here. That he'd try to put on an air of superiority to make Miles feel bad. Not for Gabriel to come across so uneasy in his own home, so aware of the empty space that surrounded them. And certainly not such casual, brutal honesty.

Neither of them was completely comfortable here. It made Miles like Gabriel a little bit more, even as he pitied him for it.

He followed Gabriel up the sweeping staircase to the second floor, polished hardwood beneath their feet. The stairs back home were chipped and worn, creaking with each step, the voice of an old house with memories ingrained in every sliver of wood. These were silent.

At the top of the stairs, a young man lounged in a stuffed armchair, a book open in his lap, though it appeared he was waiting rather than reading, his expression expectant and curious. His hair was an identical shade to Gabriel's, but he was stocky where Gabriel was long-limbed, his jaw squarer, eyes closer to green than gray. Strangely, he was wearing a pair of black leather gloves.

"My brother, Edmund," Gabriel stated over his shoulder, but he didn't slow down.

This must be the oldest Hawthorne son. Miles gave him an awkward wave and received a surprisingly easy smile in return.

"Don't get caught," Edmund called after them in a teasing tone.

Intrigued, Miles reached out. He found the same cloud obscuring Edmund's emotions as Gabriel's. He didn't know what that meant, but it was interesting.

"He doesn't care that I'm here?" he asked quietly as Gabriel led them down a hall, the blown glass sconces on the wall casting a dull yellow glow.

"No. He'll support anything that undermines or enrages our mother. It's his favorite pastime."

Perhaps Gabriel wasn't the only semi-reasonable Hawthorne after all.

"You two get along?"

Gabriel shrugged. "I suppose I get on well enough with both my brothers. Bram, my younger brother, finds me more tolerable. He doesn't dislike anyone."

"Sounds like my little sister," Miles said, thinking of Jenna. "She could make friends with a blank wall, I swear."

It didn't pull a smile from Gabriel, but it came close. "I'm fairly certain my brother is friends with several inanimate objects in the house. At the very least, he talks to them like he is."

Now Miles was picturing a miniature Gabriel lecturing a couch on the importance of good manners.

"Is he the one you mentioned who explores?" Miles asked as Gabriel stopped in front of a door identical to all the others.

He appeared startled that Miles remembered. "Yes, that's him. He's nosy, so I'd be surprised if we didn't encounter him at some point."

With that, he opened the door and gestured Miles inside.

Gabriel's bedroom could have fit three of Miles's. It looked like something from a historical novel that'd had a posh, modern update. His four-poster bed, heavy wardrobe, and thick velvet curtains could've come straight out of the nineteenth century. But his desk held a sleek computer with twin monitors, a silver laptop on his bedside table. Most of the room was decorated in cool shades of gray and navy blue. From the bed, a large black cat watched them curiously.

"You have a cat?" Gabriel hardly seemed the type to have a pet.

"No," he responded dryly. "It's Bram's, but the wretched thing always sneaks in here." Despite his words, he gave it a rub between the ears as he sat on the edge of the bed and gestured for Miles to take the leather chair at his desk.

Miles sat down gingerly, the back of his neck warm. It smelled clean in here, crisp and fresh, as if Gabriel had left the windows open. There wasn't much personality—nothing close to Miles's room, its walls plastered with art and pictures—aside from a cloth-bound journal on the desk and books stacked on the shelves. An alarming amount of Shakespeare and Edgar Allan Poe, like he'd raided every high school English classroom within a hundred-mile radius. On top was the faded copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray that he'd been reading on his first day at Thistle High.

"More depressing classics?" Miles joked.

"What?"

He nodded at the shelf. "Your books. You clearly have a type."

"They're not depressing ."

"Everyone in them sucks and they all die at the end."

Gabriel raised his eyebrows. "I wouldn't take you for a reader of the classics."

"Not by choice. I'm just a victim of public school." Miles settled back in the chair. The leather squeaked a little, but it was a million times comfier than his seat of suffering at home. "It's all we read. Boring books with boring themes we have to write boring essays about that've all been written a million times before."

Gabriel let out a quiet huff that was dangerously close to a laugh. "What books do you prefer, then?"

"Oh. Uh…" Miles hadn't expected him to ask, to act interested. "I don't have much time to read between school and helping my parents with jobs." When he did, it was usually a cheesy rom-com Charlee forced on him, claiming it was much-needed escapism from the horrors of their everyday life. He would die before admitting that to Gabriel, though. "Honestly, if I have free time, I'll throw on a show and chill."

"Such as…?"

He really wasn't going to let Miles escape without embarrassing himself. "You're gonna laugh at me."

"Most likely."

Fair enough. "Okay, so I have this guilty pleasure thing for this ridiculous ghost hunting show, where the guys freak out over nothing and use all these crazy tools, and—"

"Act as if they're risking their lives the entire time?" Gabriel finished for him.

Miles started. "Was that a lucky guess, or…?"

"I might've seen a few episodes. I need background noise when I'm studying."

"You're full of it." Gabriel looked away, and Miles grinned. "You're a huge fan, aren't you? You've probably seen all the episodes and laugh every time they get something wrong." It was what he did. "C'mon, what season are you on? Did you watch the episode where they went to that house in Seattle and tried to give the daughter's hamster an exorcism after accusing it of being a demon in disguise?"

For a moment, Gabriel was silent. Miles thought he was going to deny it. Then his chin lifted. "Of course I've seen it. That was back in season ten."

"Ha!" Beside Gabriel, the black cat's ears twitched, but Miles was too triumphant to care. "I knew it. Isn't it awful ? I can't get enough. I love the episodes where they say they got amazing evidence and it's always… a picture of a smudge or a recording of the wind."

"My personal favorites are when they challenge the ghosts to a fight. The logic is so flawed, and they try so hard to assert their dominance."

"And you know if they ever saw a real ghost, they'd lose it."

"Undoubtedly."

Well, well, who would've guessed that Gabriel Hawthorne had a fondness for dramatic ghost hunting shows? If Miles were a worse person, he'd tuck that information away as future blackmail material. Instead, he basked in the moment of pleasant surprise.

"Charlee made us bingo sheets for when we watch it, for all the things they say or do wrong. We never make it through an episode without a bingo."

"That sounds… interesting."

"It's loads of fun." A jittery excitement rushed through Miles. "The new season starts next month, you can join us. Experience the thrill of a bingo ."

The invite was out of his mouth before he stopped to think about it. His brain had gone rogue, caught up in the moment. An awkward silence fell as Gabriel squinted at him, probably trying to figure out if Miles was joking.

The once-cool room was now stifling, Miles's jacket too tight. "Uh, anyway, you want to see my sketch, right? See if you know who the lady I saw is?"

Not a graceful change of subject, but Gabriel was tactful enough to accept it with a nod.

Miles dug his sketchbook out of his backpack at his feet, flipping the page where he'd sketched the vision-woman. Gabriel took it from him, studying it intensely.

"Do you recognize her?"

"There's something… she's definitely familiar, but I can't put my finger on it."

Miles took it back, surprised. He'd been sure she was a Hawthorne. He hadn't managed to capture her as well as he'd have preferred—maybe his sketch was so bad that Gabriel couldn't recognize her.

"There goes that lead, I guess. Back to the books, then?"

Gabriel crossed his ankles, then uncrossed them, his fingers drumming against the bed. "I was thinking… there's another thing we could try."

Miles didn't like the sound of that. "I'm listening."

"First, I need you to promise you won't tell anyone about this."

The feeling of dread grew. "Why?" he asked. "If it involves someone getting hurt—"

Gabriel cut him off. "No, nothing like that. It's… I don't like people to know about this. You'll understand why."

Personal, then. It had to be, with the way Gabriel was shifting self-consciously. It might make Miles the world's biggest fool, but he trusted him. And he wanted Gabriel to trust him back.

"Okay. I promise."

Gabriel's shoulders relaxed. "I told you I'm a seer and that's true. But…" He hesitated, fingers still tapping that erratic beat against the bed. "Occasionally, I can also pick up stray thoughts from people."

"You mean feelings? But that's empathic."

"No. Thoughts. Direct thoughts."

As his words sank in, Miles was hit with a rush of panic. Sensing the emotions and intentions of another person was one thing, and through that, you could try to gauge what a person was thinking. But to pluck thoughts, actual thoughts—

Oh, God. Had Gabriel been reading his mind?

Miles gripped the armrests of the chair tightly, throat packed with sawdust, sand on his tongue. He was going to puke.

Gabriel seemed to realize where his mind was going. Or maybe he read it. Jesus .

"I haven't been," he said quickly, his voice as near apologetic as Miles had ever heard. "It's only when people have strong thoughts directed towards me. I can't help it. It's like they're shouting at me."

"Have you gotten anything from me?" Miles made himself ask.

"Of course. I make you quite angry sometimes. That first day, in the bathroom, for example."

It took Miles a second to recall what he was referring to. The way Gabriel had flinched when Miles replayed Charlee's scathing words, that he wasn't worth saving.

God, he'd heard .

"I'm sorry," he choked out, mortified. "I didn't mean—"

"It's fine. I didn't realize it at the time, but it was quite a rare moment for you. I should have paused and appreciated it." Gabriel sounded more amused than upset.

The tight band around Miles's chest loosened slightly. He tried to find something to say. "I can see why you keep that to yourself."

Not just the gift itself but the fact that he had two. According to… everyone, it was supposed to be impossible. They were both anomalies.

"Ah." Gabriel rubbed the side of his pointed nose. "That's actually not it, though I'd appreciate you keeping that to yourself as well. There's another thing I can do." He was speaking fast. "I can, well, slip into a person's mind, for lack of a better description."

Miles gaped at him. "Wait, what ?"

"It's difficult, but if I have a physical connection with them, and time to do it, I can…" He paused, like he could hear how bad this sounded. "Peer into their thoughts. Take a look around in their head."

A look around. In their head .

That was insane. Miles had never heard of anything even close to it before. Having that gift, the ability to invade someone's most personal space and dig around was…

Unnatural.

Would Gabriel be telling him this if he understood the implications?

If his family were using forbidden magic to get better gifts, they must be keeping Gabriel ignorant about it. And whatever the price, the ability to invade people's minds would be considered well worth it.

"Gabriel," he started carefully. "That's—"

"I know," Gabriel said curtly. His shoulders inched up. "Trust me, I know. But it could help us figure out who the woman you saw is."

It took Miles a moment to put the pieces together. " No . No way."

"If I can see her, I might be able to figure out why she's familiar."

"I said no."

The suggestion of having his privacy invaded on such a level made his skin crawl. It already felt unbearably invasive that he was picking up the occasional thought from Miles, but this…

There were too many things he might see.

"I'm not going to force you," Gabriel said. "But at least let me explain how it would work. After that, the decision is yours."

Didn't he hear what Miles was saying? He'd trusted Gabriel for a brief second, but letting him into his head was a big leap of faith.

And this damn place—the stifling, heavy feeling pressing down on him—was wearing on his nerves.

He made himself take a steadying breath.

"If you consent," Gabriel explained, "I'd need to be touching you. It won't hurt, you probably won't even notice anything. All you need to do is focus on her face, and I'll try to see it. I wouldn't—I'm not going to search around for anything else. If you don't think about it, I won't see it. I'll focus solely on what you're showing me. And I'll leave the second I see her, if it even works. You have my word."

That didn't sound as bad as Miles had expected. He'd pictured Gabriel flipping through his mind like the pages of a book, stopping to read anything that caught his attention.

If he said no, they'd be no closer to preventing Gabriel's death. He remembered Gabriel's lifeless stare, the way he'd admitted to Miles that he didn't want to die, those few seconds of vulnerability he'd been unable to hide.

"I'll do it." It was difficult to get the words out. He wanted to snatch them back the second they were in the air. It made him feel a little better that Gabriel didn't seem thrilled to hear them. This wasn't fun for him, either. "But I need to tell you something first."

"It can't wait?"

"No." Letting Gabriel trip over his own dead body wasn't a good way for him to find out. "There was more in my vision. More that I saw. Your… body." He swallowed. "This vision took place after you were already dead."

Gabriel stiffened. Miles knew he was feeling the same fear—that the future truly was unchangeable. If they didn't find answers, he'd end up on that floor, blood staining the stone. It was real and it was going to happen if they didn't stop it.

"I just—I wanted to warn you. In case you saw."

Gabriel nodded. Miles thought there might have been the tiniest hint of gratitude in the gesture.

"I have to touch you," Gabriel murmured, positioning himself more fully at the end of the bed. His gaze flicked up to Miles, their eyes locking.

Right, touching. Miles scooted his chair closer, until their knees were only an inch or two apart. "Is this okay?"

"Yes." Gabriel reached out to where Miles's hand rested on the arm of the chair. His fingertips brushed against him, a nearly imperceptible weight against his skin. They were cold. "I'll be as quick as I can. Focus on the vision."

No more time to stall. This was happening. Miles braced himself, every cell in his body standing to attention. Pulling up the memory, he concentrated as hard as he could on the woman's face. Every time he found his focus straying, a shot of panic jolted through him—his brain wasn't doing a great job of not thinking about all the things he was telling it to not think about.

Gabriel inhaled sharply.

"What do you see?"

"Nothing yet. It's always hard to see at first, as if I'm standing in a dim hallway." His voice was a whisper, and Miles could feel the warmth of his breath. This whole thing felt abruptly intimate. "Imagine putting everything you don't want me to see behind a door and lock it. If I come across it, I won't open it."

Immediately, Miles took everything bouncing around that had to do with Gabriel and shoved it into a room. He envisioned a door slamming shut, the click of a lock turning.

"It's done," he said, trying to relax where a tense knot had formed between his shoulders. He turned his nose into the sherpa collar of his jacket, inhaling the soft scent of laundry soap.

There was a slight nudge in the back of his mind, almost like someone tapping gently on the top of his skull. The hairs on his arms stood on end. Gabriel was poking around.

A lifted platform. A woman laid out on it. She turned her head and looked at him with eyes that blazed like twin suns, dark with determination and rage. Her face was tear-streaked, her hands curled into claws against the stone.

Miles took the time to notice more details than he initially had. Her tangled ebony hair, the thin white dress she was wearing, an old-fashioned nightgown. The unnatural stiffness of her body, as if an invisible weight were pressing her down.

"There she is," Gabriel whispered. "I swear I— oh ."

His touch disappeared and Miles opened his eyes, blinking at the light. Gabriel was leaning back, loose-limbed, alabaster fingers splayed out across the bedspread, a flush high on his cheekbones. He looked… different than usual. It was a good thing Gabriel wasn't in his mind anymore.

It took him a second to find his voice. "You okay?"

"Yes." Gabriel shook his head like he was coming out of a stupor. "I'm always a little disoriented after doing that." He let out a soft laugh. The sound made something flutter low in Miles's gut.

Strange self-consciousness surged through him. "What's so funny?"

"You. I mean, your thoughts. Your mind." Miles had never heard Gabriel so jumbled. "Everything was so… bright." Offering no further explanation, he got up from the bed, shifting his legs so they didn't brush against Miles's. "I saw her. The woman. And I know who she is."

As he stood, Miles caught a glimpse of the shadows under the bed shifting, reaching with long, spindly fingers towards Gabriel. He blinked, and they were gone.

An unsettling sensation slithered down his spine. Gabriel's little dig around was messing with him.

"Who?" Miles made himself focus on Gabriel, rubbing his arms. Being that exposed was something he could do without.

"I don't know how, but that's Jocelyn Hawthorne."

"Jocelyn Hawthorne? That can't be right. She's dead."

"It certainly is interesting."

How the hell was Gabriel so calm about everything? It was beyond infuriating.

"Are you sure it was her? How do you know?"

"I'll show you."

***

Gabriel took Miles down to the ballroom, where row after row of oil portraits hung on the wall. It was unsettling to see the room empty, devoid of the people and overwhelming energy it had held the other week. The corners the light didn't reach, corners that had offered Miles a moment of respite from the party and scrutinizing inspections, now appeared darker, deeper, and much less welcoming.

Outside the windows, the sun was setting, sinking below the tree line as twilight crept across the lawn, inching closer to the house with each tick of the clock.

Miles followed Gabriel through the cavernous ballroom to a painting of the woman from his vision, the plaque set into the thick frame declaring her as Jocelyn Hawthorne.

The woman his ancestor murdered, who wrote in her journal about afternoons spent reading poetry in her favorite chair, growing apart from her sister, finding a blossoming new friendship in Rosalie Warren. Her hair was pinned up rather than hanging in tangles, her burgundy dress edged in white lace that sat ruffled under her chin, her expression serene and a little bored, but there was no doubt it was her. Gabriel was right.

"What the hell?" This lady was showing up everywhere, and he didn't like it. He'd felt sorry for her while reading her journal, guilty even, wishing she'd gotten justice. But if she was going to kill Gabriel, that changed things.

He turned, surprised to find Gabriel looking at him instead of the painting. The way he was staring made Miles feel raw and exposed, even more than when Gabriel had picked through his head. Anticipation raised goosebumps across his arms.

"What?" he blurted, too loud for the echoing room.

Gabriel blinked rapidly, lips parting. "Nothing. My mind wandered for a moment. I must still be recovering from going through your thoughts. It can take time."

Miles reached for him, worried about how unsteady he seemed. "Do you need to sit down or something?"

Waving him off, Gabriel turned to Jocelyn's portrait. "I'm fine. What were you saying?"

Gabriel probably wouldn't accept help even if he needed it. "That you're right about Jocelyn. She looks exactly the same."

"I told you."

"No, I mean she hasn't aged at all."

"Yes. I don't think her still being alive is a real possibility," Gabriel said flatly.

"Her spirit, then?"

Gabriel studied the portrait carefully. "That seems most probable. As far as I know, bringing someone back from the dead is still impossible."

Zombies . Miles shuddered. "And it should stay that way."

Gabriel made a musing sound. "I suppose you can never truly know with magic."

Miles started. They didn't throw that word around much in his family. Hearing it from Gabriel's mouth was beyond strange.

"What?"

"You said ‘magic.' It's… it's nothing, just weird to hear."

Gabriel blinked. "You don't believe in magic?"

"No, no, I do." What other word was there for the things they could do? For how Gabriel had rifled through his brain minutes before, how Miles could sense emotions and talk to ghosts and work spells and—

Yeah. It wasn't powerful, and it wasn't how they portrayed it in the movies, but it was magic. Still, the word never settled right on his tongue, in his mouth or in his head.

Magic sounded too… big . Too much for someone like him. The word had the power to wipe away the scraps of normalcy he'd managed to cling to. His family didn't have wands or fancy spellbooks, only his dad's scribbled notebooks bound by tape and paperclips, and a collection of supplies they'd scraped together. There were no bubbling cauldrons or sparkling potions in their kitchen, only his mom's herbal tea, crystals lined along the windowsill, and endless dirty dishes piling in the sink.

Nothing about Miles's life or his family had ever come across as magic. It had always seemed… ordinary, in its own way.

"I guess I don't think about it very often," Miles finally said. "You know, in school, everything is about science and physics and… Magic doesn't fit."

He expected Gabriel to laugh at him, but his gaze was pensive. "Magic and science can coexist. They do coexist, as two sides of the same coin. It doesn't have to be one or the other. That's like…" He considered for a second. "Saying that because the sun exists, the moon can't."

"I know, I just… I don't know what I'm trying to say. It doesn't matter." His ears warmed, undoubtedly turning crimson.

Gabriel considered. "In my family, they take the term ‘gifted' more literally—a gift from the forces of the universe. A blessing. A sign of power, of superiority." He turned away, back up at the painting of Jocelyn Hawthorne. "I've never seen it that way. I wonder if we weren't tricked into thinking this is all a gift."

The air thrummed in the space between them. Miles had the strangest feeling his next words were very important.

"I think," he said slowly, "it doesn't really matter. Our gifts will always be what we make of them. That's what matters."

Gabriel didn't respond, but Miles thought the tense line of his shoulders might have softened at least a little.

"You know," he said lightly, recalling a discussion he'd heard in the kitchen years ago. "My parents once had a client who insisted the whole psychic thing was because of special genes and evolution. He said being an empath is all about chemical smells and pheromones… like ants. And seers can see the future because time has no meaning—the past, present, and future all coexist side by side." He chuckled, remembering the look his parents had exchanged.

To his relief, Gabriel cracked a very, very small smile. "If you were compared to an ant, I can't imagine what he would say about me."

Miles's mirth faded. He didn't know what anyone would say about Gabriel's gifts.

Well, that wasn't true. He knew exactly what his parents would say.

"So… Jocelyn." Miles tried to ignore how Gabriel's amusement vanished at the abrupt change of subject. "At least we know who to watch out for now."

"It's a big assumption to make that she's my killer. I'm her blood, and I never did anything to harm her."

"Hey, you're the one who said we have to interpret the clues of my visions. A scary, murderous-looking ghost next to your dead body seems self-explanatory to me." Miles ran a hand through his hair with a sigh. "Better safe than sorry, right? Until we have a better suspect, let's operate under the assumption she's the killer."

"Fine." Gabriel didn't sound pleased about it. "That doesn't change the fact we know nothing about her."

"I guess it's a good thing I have her journal, huh?" Miles couldn't resist saying smugly.

Gabriel's lips pressed together. "We already know what happened to her."

"Maybe that's not the full story."

To his amazement, Gabriel hummed in agreement. "Perhaps."

A shrill squawk went off in Miles's pocket. He'd set an alarm on his phone for when he needed to leave, so his mom wouldn't get suspicious.

"That's my cue to go," he told Gabriel. "I'll read more of Jocelyn's journal tonight, see if I can find anything. But this is probably going to end in banishing her ghost before she comes for you." He frowned, thinking for a second. "I wish I knew where her body was. The closer I am to it, the easier time I'll have with the ritual."

"I'll check our library and see if I can find anything more about her disappearance or the case against Harry Warren," Gabriel said.

Miles grinned at him—it felt amazing to finally have a lead to follow, a direction to go in. To make progress. He needed this.

Gabriel looked away. "I'll show you out."

He opened the ballroom doors, revealing a boy a few years younger than Jenna and Amy, standing there with the black cat in his arms. This had to be the youngest Hawthorne son, Bram. Unlike his brothers, his hair was a light caramel brown, his features rounder rather than pointed. He gave Miles a curious examination, head cocked slightly.

"Bram." Gabriel didn't sound surprised to see him—he'd predicted as much. "How many times do I have to warn you about eavesdropping?"

"I wasn't!" he protested. "I just wanted to see your friend."

Gabriel looked horrified. "He's not—we're not—"

Oh, this was too good to pass up.

"Hi there," Miles said, "I'm Miles. Gabriel's friend. Best friend, probably, by default."

Bram nodded solemnly. Gabriel fumed, shooting Miles a venomous glare.

"I'm Bramwell Hawthorne. Gabriel and Edmund call me Bram, so I guess you can, too." Maneuvering the cat over his shoulder, he stuck out his hand.

Miles shook it, trying not to laugh.

"We aren't friends ," Gabriel said, like the word left a bad taste in his mouth.

"Then what are we?"

"Unavoidable acquaintances. Reluctant allies. Not friends."

"Look how hard he's trying to hurt my feelings," Miles told Bram. "I think we embarrassed him."

"Ignore him," Gabriel told his brother, before he could respond. "And don't forget—you never saw him. He wasn't here."

"I know." Bram turned his wide-eyed gaze back to Miles. They were an identical gray to Gabriel's. "Don't worry, I'm good at keeping secrets."

"I'm sure you are," Miles said seriously. "It's an important skill to have."

That earned him a tentative smile.

Gabriel stepped closer, reaching down to straighten Bram's crooked collar. He was wearing a light blue button-up, similar to Gabriel's own. "Miles is about to leave, so we can finish our movie from last night. Assuming, of course, that you completed your assigned reading."

Bram's demeanor lit up, a switch flipped. "And I can make popcorn?"

"Only if you promise to eat it all before Mother gets home. And that you'll put everything back in the kitchen precisely as you found it."

"I promise." Bram started to scurry down the hall then stopped, glancing back. "It was nice to meet you," he called to Miles, the cat meowing as if it agreed.

Miles raised his hand to wave goodbye.

"Sorry," Gabriel murmured once Bram was out of earshot. "He's… excitable."

Being around his brother had softened Gabriel, smoothed out his prickly edges. For all that he wilted under the cavernous weight of this house, Bram managed to perk him back up with just a smile and a few words. An unexpected warmth lived there, a sense of family that Miles recognized.

"What?" Gabriel demanded. Miles realized he'd been staring.

"Nothing, sorry. I really need to get going."

Gabriel led him back to the front door and opened it without a word, watching as Miles lifted his jacket collar against the creeping chill. He hesitated, one foot in and one foot out, inexplicably unable to look Gabriel in the face.

"See you tomorrow?" He wasn't sure why it came out as a question.

"Of course," Gabriel told him after a moment of silence that felt infinitely long.

Miles nodded and hurried down the stairs, car keys jangling as he slipped them from his pocket. He snuck a peek back over his shoulder, surprised to see Gabriel still standing in the doorway, watching him leave.

They had a lot to talk about—Gabriel's unnatural gifts, how to handle Jocelyn, preparing for the banishing ritual—but as Miles drove down the long, lonely stretch of driveway back to the gate, all he could think about was the look, aching with exasperated affection, that Gabriel had given his younger brother as he'd fixed his collar.